Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Q&A with Telltale Games

The Sam & Max franchise is making its first foray onto PS3 next Thursday, April 15. I think I speak for us all when I say, “It’s about dang time!”

The third season of Sam & Max – The Devil’s Playhouse – hits PSN next week with Episode 1: The Penal Zone. If you’re not familiar with the Telltale Games style of play, it’s all based on an episodic adventure game structure where story drives the gameplay. To break down the fine details, listen to what director and writer Chuck Jordan has to say about the premiere on PS3 in the video below.

You can pre-order the entire five-episode series now for $29.99, which secures all five installments for a $5 discount.

Visually speaking, I think we’re in line for the best version of Sam & Max yet. But hey, I’m biased. Now go tell Telltale we want Strong Bad and Wallace & Gromit!

I’m more excited for this than I was for PixelJunk Shooter, and that’s really saying something!

Couple of questions:
1. will the game play in 1080p native resolution?

2. will the music assets be 24-bit? The WiiWare titles had horrendous sound quality, and the great music deserves to be of the highest quality that takes advantage of the PS3.

3. will seasons 1 & 2 come to PS3 as well? will they be “remastered” with the gfx engine, model, shader, and texture enhancements?

4. same question as 3, but with regard to Wallace and Gromit, SBCG4AP, and Tales of Monkey Island

5. When LucasArts releases Secret of Monkey Island 1 & 2 on PSN this summer, will TellTale tie into that by releasing Tales of Monkey Island?

6. are the models/textures shown in the trailer from the final game? The overhead of the street and the Mole in particular look not as good as the rest of characters and environments shown in the trailer.

1. Yes – 1080p in all its glory
2. The sound is non-compressed, 16bit/44 kpbs audio, or “CD quality.” I’ve heard it. It sounds great. Also, we’re totally excited that season 1 and 2 composer Jared Emerson-Johnson returned to create an epic jazz score for The Devil’s Playhouse. Thanks, Jared!
3. The PS3 is an awesome piece of hardware, and we’re really happy with the way The Penal Zone looks, sounds and plays. We’ve brought a lot of our back catalog to other platforms, so there’s always a solid chance we’d do the same for the PS3. And any time we bring a game to a new platform, it’s optimized for that particular device.
4. Basically, we want our entire library on anything with a computer chip.
5. Ah, only time will tell …
6. Well, the mole-man is a pretty freaky looking dude to begin with, so there’s that. But, yes, those are the final assets, and we think (hope) you’ll be crazy impressed with the way it looks on your machine.

Before Strong Bad and Wallace & Gromit, I want Sam and Max S1 and S2, I’m not gonna buy S3 and get lost in the story. A demo would also be nice so I can see how point and click adventure games translate to a controller. Ohh I also want Tales of Monkey Island S1. These adventure games would be perfect for PS Move support btw.

@RedPriestRezo: You are aware that this is a brand-new starting point for Sam and Max, right? It would be nice to have the older adventures, but that’s like saying that not having Sam and Max Hit the Road from 1993 is going to ruin this experience.

This is not called season 3 for a reason. The Devil’s Playhouse is all you need to enjoy. A full bio for each character is included in Sam’s notepad in the game, so you can read to your heart’s content about them.

I’m absolutely looking forward to this new season! I think I’ve decided I will preorder on the PS3, and save $5! Not to mention HD graphics, and Trophies! I’m trying to finish Season 2 on the Wii right now to get ready for The Devil’s Playhouse! I’m about halfway through the 3rd episode, “Night of the Raving Dead.”

It sounds like the controls on the PS3 will be much more different than the first 2 seasons, which is a good thing! Playing the first season on PC with a mouse, and the second with the Wii Remote, just moving Sam around could be awkward. And driving sequences could be very tricky to master, especially on the Wii! On the Wii, the driving controls weren’t very consistent: in one episode, you move the car by pointing to where you want to go, and press A; in this third episode, you move the car with the d-pad, and you shoot CD’s at zombies with the B button in the back. Having the analog stick will make things much more smoothly!

Oh, Telltale? You guys need to update your Sam & Max page on your website! It still says the Wii version of Season 2 is “Coming Soon”, but I have it in my home! You might be planning to update it when the first new episode comes out next Thursday, but I just wanted to let you know!

Can’t wait for this. i have loved adventure games since playing the old sierra and lucas arts games back in the 80’s as a kid. (good ole maniac mansion and the kings/police/space quest series were top notch as well as gabriel kinght.) I own sam and max season 1 on PC but I like to play games on my ps3 more nowadays, so this is very very welcome. Thank you telltale and sony for bringing this out on ps3 and continuing a genre that was presumed dead a few short years ago.

i just checked and its still not there but maybe tonight i hope.also i’m surprised i didnt see any mention of penny arcade i was bummed when i read the 3rd one got canceled.the first monkey island was the best with the insult sword fighting that was awsome.

Its been well worth the wait to have such a great game come out on the PSN, thank you who have worked on this game and so very hard as well;within the first 15 min of game play and yeah back to the past i go !